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Update, 2/21/2013, 3:17 p.m. EST: The fourth paragraph of this story has been revised to incorporate information about changes in the firm's total attorney head count in 2012, as well as in its equity and nonequity partner ranks.
Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan registered strong financial gains across the board in 2012, according to an announcement issued by the firm Wednesday.
The litigation-only firm made its greatest gains in gross revenue, which climbed roughly 17.85 percent compare to 2011, to $853 million. The firm also posted solid increases in both revenue per lawyer and profits per equity partner, with the former improving 9.4 percent, to $1.2 million, and the latter jumping 6.6 percent, to $4.436 million.
“We had an extraordinarily busy year,” firm managing partner John Quinn said in a statement included in a press release announcing the 2012 results. “We benefited significantly from contingent fee and other alternative billing arrangements, both on the plaintiffs and defense side.”
Quinn Emanuel—which, according to the firm's press release, has recorded double-digit increases in both gross revenues and profits per partner in all but one of the last 11 years—was one of just two Am Law 100 firms to top the $4 million mark in profits in 2011. (The firm placed second in that category, behind Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz.) The firm said total attorney head count increased 7.7 percent, to 697, the equity partnership grew 9 percent, to 121, and the nonequity partner ranks swelled 34.3 percent, to 47.
The firm’s solid results were the product of a crowded docket that included, among other matters, representing Google in a copyright infringement case brought by a publisher of adult images; Seiko Epson Corp. in patent infringement cases involving ink jet cartridges; and, perhaps most notably, Samsung in the high-profile patent infringement case brought against the company by Apple over smartphone technology.
A spokesman for the firm did not immediately respond to a request for further comment about the financial results or about any head count changes that may have occurred in 2012.
This report is part of The Am Law Daily’s early coverage of the 2012 financial results of The Am Law100/200. Click here to see an interactive chart comparing this firm’s 2012 finances to those of other Am Law 100 and Second Hundred firms that The Am Law Daily and its sibling publications have reported on to date. Final rankings and full results for The Am Law 100 will be published in The American Lawyer’s May 2013 issue and on AmericanLawyer.com. The Am Law Second Hundred will be published in the June issue.
